So everyone who doesn't feel exactly like you must THEREFORE follow (perhps subconsciously) the policies of Nazi Germany, North Korea, Pol Pot, and Al Qaeda? When you invariably resort to transparent rhetorical tricks like that to get your way perhaps you reveal a bit more in common (perhaps subconsciously) with those villains than you care to admit, even to yourself.

There is a difference between cultural and moral relativism and an inability to see the water you swim in. Before you can deal with the monstrous political superstitions loose in the world, you must first recognize how easy it is be seduced by them. Don't you think every single one of those horrors you mention rationalizes its methods with fine nonegotiable and uncompromising moral justifications? They serve their God, or their racial supremacy, or the Will of the People, with the same zeal and certainty you feel the need to display, and proselytize, here every day. Even the most benign and humane political or economic philosophy can be seized and twisted by those who feel they have the moral obligation to do whatever it takes to frustrate the plans of the wicked.

The evil lies not in the ideology, it is in the psychology of power. The ideology serves the psychology, and any ideology will do. Most of us cannot really understand what drives that mentality, especially since it doesn't necessarily result in evil. But when this personality allies itself with ideological purity and certainty, with zealotry and the paranoid social culture it breeds in human communities, you get the malignant growth you describe.

This mentality is often found in the administrative mind, it is common in careerists, executives and bureaucrats, specifically, lawyers, politicians, managers and businessmen. You will note I did not include entrepreneurs in my list. They are a different bird altogether. I'm not saying that everyone in these professions is inherently toxic, I'm saying this is where it always begins.

When you put this natural type of leader in contact with an ideology that will not tolerate competition or questioning, a world view that has it all figured out, you get a Lenin or a Mao. If you study the lives of these men and their ilk you often notice they live simple, humble self-sacrificing lives. They work very hard, take huge risks, and are driven by a conviction of the rightness of their cause and the corruption of their enemies. But they all have one thing in common, the necessary but insufficient precondition for a tyrant. They never have any self-doubt about the inevitability and righteousness of their ideology, and that gives them the justification and obligation to do whatever is necessary to destroy those who oppose them. Just like you, Tom.

You and I are very similar psychological types. We don't want to be boss, we want to left alone and sit at our workstations and solve puzzles, and to come up with elegant solutions to technical problems. We feel that doing this will help our community and will earn us a comfortable and secure living (not necessarily luxury, wealth or power) in return. So rest assured, I'm not afraid you will ever become a dictator. But if you were a lawyer, politician, or businessman, I might not be so confident.